U.S. Announces Massive Study on Female Genital Mutilation

"When I heard the news, I started screaming with joy," activist Jaha Dukureh says.

The Guardian

By
Heather Wood Rudulph

Jul 23, 2014

The U.S. government will conduct a massive study into female genital mutilation and begin the process of identifying how many women and girls are victims of the practice — and how many more are at risk.

Ambassador Catherine M. Russell announced Tuesday that the Office of Global Women's Issues will assemble a working group made up of members from different governmental agencies to begin the process of tackling a human rights atrocity that affects an estimated 228,000 women and girls in America. Its first step: Find the victims.

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FGM is a cultural practice that involves cutting the clitoris and labia from a young girl. UNICEF estimates 125 million women and girls around the world are victims of the practice that involves complications such as bleeding, infertility, and death during childbirth.

It has been illegal to perform FGM in the U.S. since 1996. In 2013, Congress amended the law to criminalize taking girls outside of the country for the purposes of FGM — an action known as "vacation cutting." The last U.S. study focusing on FGM was conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services in 1997. It found that in 1990 168,000 women and girls were either victims or at risk of undergoing FGM. Experts agree that this tally is wildly outdated.

The news of the new study came on the same day as the world's first Girl Summit in London, which drew activists and policymakers from around the globe to share ideas on ending forced marriage and female genital mutilation within a generation. Attendees included Pakistani human rights activist Malala Yousafzai and Jaha Dukureh, the 24-year-old FGM survivor who has been leading the campaign in the United States to end the brutal practice.

Jaha Dukureh (second from right) with fellow activists at the Girl Summit in London this week.

Girl Summit

"When I heard the news, I started screaming with joy," she said on a phone call from London. "This is what we've been asking for all along. It's incredible that it's actually happening."

In March, Dukureh posted a petition on Change.orgcalling for an end to FGM in the U.S. It has received more than 221,000 signatures. In June, she met with members of Congress and urged them to take action. A total of 58 members added their names to a letter to the Obama administration asking it to do the same.

"One of the things we asked Congress was to establish an inter-agency group to address the complex issues of FGM," Dukureh said. "We need to look at immigration, education, and medicine. I think it is highly important for them to have a survivor in the group to ensure that the voices of survivors and at-risk girls are represented. FGM is a huge issue to tackle, and I believe that's why the U.S. has not tackled it yet. Now that we are doing it, I want to make sure we do it right."

Putting together the working group is a preliminary step in what will inevitably be a long-term investigation. The first actions will be to define which percentage of the U.S. population is from countries with a high prevalence of FGM, says Shelby Quast, senior policy advisor for Equality Now. From there, it will be easier to identify how many women and girls may have been subjected to FGM, and how many more may be at risk.

"This is an excellent first step of many," says Quast, who has been at Dukureh's side in the political efforts to raise awareness of FGM since her Change.org petition gained traction. "FGM is a unique issue in that it links both national and foreign policy and involves actors from all departments and agencies. We need to identify and train frontline professionals that engage with the community, survivors, and girls at risk. I think this move by the administration proves that it sees girls as important and that it will take steps to prioritize them."